


Mordecai of Fornval

by AnathemaAuthoress



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Cannibalism, Dark fic, Demon!Rick, Eventual Smut, M/M, god!morty, prosey
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 09:03:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14808323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnathemaAuthoress/pseuds/AnathemaAuthoress
Summary: Mordecai is an ancient being, once worshipped for flesh that saved a nation, but in the modern era he's been reduced to an echo. At the end of his rope, he's forced to summon a demon-one of the only creatures that can still see him. He needs to be consumed to live, but what's the price for a demon's help?





	Mordecai of Fornval

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sunshinecackle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunshinecackle/gifts).



> When I purposed a demon-related cannibal story for big bang, Soul4Sale hit me with this concept and said I could go crazy even if I didn't use it for the bang, so here we have it. This is for you, Soul.

A summer of seedless bounty. A dominion of endless days in a valley of plenty where all has turned toxic from touch. Mordecai of Fornval, a god once worshipped and revered in a land long ago withered, knew he was little more than dust collecting on the mantel of the world. His skin shuddered, ample and unscathed.

"Perhaps there is something more, something we've forgotten," the girl said. The glaze in her eyes was apparent, a milky hue that reflected things beyond it. A temporary veil brought on by the substance beneath her tongue.

Mordecai felt that pulse, a hint of living. Of being. He reached out for her but words shot like daggers.

"Not likely," scoffed the boy across from her. "Not going all religious on me now?"

"No!" She laughed, a forced and wretched sound.

Mordecai sighed and silently left the room. They didn't notice, too indulged in mindless chatter. The youthful figment didn't know what to do. Anytime he was beckoned by a glimmer or spark of hope it dwindled just as quickly. It didn't matter and he knew that, for his name was lost to time. How could he even hope it might resurface?

It was time. He knew that. Moving from place to place as an apparition would find his soul disposed. The book, the ancient tome of the forbidden, cried out to him. He knew what it might mean, but if he was to fade, why not take the risk?

******

The world used to be so big. Open ridges and valleys as far as the eye could see. Fields of tended wheat would paint the hollows gold and grapevines spoke of spring and the flourish of the gods.

But lands shrivel and new worlds rise from the ashes of worship. Mordecai remembered it all, some more vaguely, but most all the same. The rise of structures, primitive, then ornate, then simple.

In his prime, the god would lavish in thrones of cottons and silk. He would partake of sacrifice and be partaken of. He would be reborn each year in between the lips of his people. Words whispered, escaping to deliver his praise. Teeth gnashing, bodies revitalized and sustained.

It felt too long ago now, tangled up in bitterness and rebellion. He'd been a languid god, then an angry one. Now he was a shadow.

Mordecai had chosen his dwelling in a time so distant he scarcely recalled. Once it had been a temple, built on purified ground and hallowed through ritual practice. He'd been born again here a thousand times. Weather had worn the structure down and time had foreclosed it completely. In those days, Mordecai traveled, moved with the beating of loyal hearts. When his name started to dwindle on the lips of new unbelievers he returned to soak up the passion that still echoed in the earth.

Afterward it became a modest dwelling, then a fine manor. When the last family had left it behind, driven away by hauntings–objects moving by themselves and the pathetic moans of forgotten lords–the building had been left to rot. It fostered Mordecai's feelings of loneliness and insecurity, but it was the only place his breath still had weight. The only ground still vibrating with old, forgotten chants.

It was decaying now, Mordecai's manor. Of the windows most were boarded, while the floor creaked beneath the weight of rogue rats and alley cats seeking temporary shelter. Even the moth-eaten wallpaper and tenuous staircases didn't have the decency to flutter or collapse by his presence. He was lighter than air, barely anchored. It took too much now to channel himself into the proper plain.

Despite it all, this decrepit pulpit had become his own. He wished only that his sermons could carry as once they had. But his time was drawing to a close and had been for a long time coming.

Perhaps that, Mordecai thought, was the natural way of things. All creatures died and were replaced, all religion prayed for and forgotten, all old toys broken and lost. Even still he feared death or nonbeing, whichever would come, neither of which he was certain would be worse.

That's what drove him that day, as many days, to the voice. That girl's voice, he'd felt it. Not her words but her intention. Perhaps she was a reincarnation or a descendant of an old follower. It hardly mattered. He'd chased these fleeting sensations from one point to another as far as his will could carry him, but it never amounted to more than a feeling. No one was ever taken by their inclination and driven to see him. No one could ever hear or feel his pleading.  

He was getting weaker and he knew this would be the last trip. His skin, supple as it was, was over-ripening. He was rotting, _the final step_.

He took the final step into the bedroom he'd deemed his own. There was still a mattress there from a wanderer that had past through. It was covered in mold and wreaked of despair and months old piss. Mordecai pressed his hands to it and the mattress provided no give. Then he pressed down, passed through it with the ease of a ghost, even though he wasn't quite that. Deeper he reached beneath the floorboard where he'd hidden the book. He pulled it free and held it up. It was as old as he was and existed in both plains and yet held the pristine white pages and smooth, shining leather cover it forever had worn.

He had received it from a loyal follower, a witch whom he'd taken as a temporary lover. He remembered still her red hair flared beneath her, breasts bared, and mouth tainted red with his blood when she had given it to him. It was a last resort, a means to survive should the world fall in around him. _"Even the greatest realms shall fall when kingdom comes,"_ she'd whispered. Foul and artistic means of telling him he was doomed.

He'd been so arrogant then, so flippant. Yet part of him had feared for he'd held onto the gift long past their parting, past her passing, past the decay of his greatest realms. He didn't want to die.

Trembling, he gathered up some chalk, a feat which nearly drew him into a wisp's walk he might never return from. He wished he'd done this sooner, when his strength was still his own. Wishing never bore fruit however, and so he went on, dragging the chalk listlessly so it marked the dirty ground in ancient curves.

When it was done he drew in heavy breaths and lifted the tome that’s pages still smelled faintly of sage and sandalwood. He began to read the chant, a curled up tongue even he did not know. He knew he was botching it. She'd have laughed if only she'd been there.

Instead the ground rumbling was the only sound that found him. The floor began to shutter and splint down the edge of the chalk lines. The wood trembled and parted, revealing the floor below before the space was filled with red liquid more like melted gemstone than blood.

Mordecai could taste the words, they were thickening on his tongue, imbuing him with power. The whole manor shook and surely now the neighborhood was whispering of the haunting once more.

Fire lifted, not in a plume but in steady, dancing waves from the fluid gem water. It flickered back and forth like a candle resisting a breeze. Mordecai's chest felt full and heavy, he was as terrified as thrilled. He prayed this would work. If it didn't this would be the trial that vanquished him.

One last drawn out syllable and at last the ground combusted like a theatrical light show. Mordecai blinked rapidly, tried to clear his vision of the orange and white speckles that had consumed his sight.

Then the aftershocks settled and his eyes blurred, then steadied. The ground was whole again, just chalk on a dirty old floor. But at the center there now hovered a man, lithe of form and bare, long limbs dangling as he floated just above the markings. Twisted rams' horns sat on either side of a head wild with tufts of blue-gray hair and dark, gnarled wings beat slowly to keep him aloft.

The man–the creature–lifted his black-painted upper lip in a snarl that revealed a long and pointed fang that gleamed over a lower row of bones just as dangerous. "Who are you?" he spat in a low and grisly tone. "And what the fuck do you want?"          

**Author's Note:**

> I love writing my prose style, but I'm out of practice so hopefully no one minds I used a lot to say a little. This story will be an update-as-I-go dealy, so I make no promises about where this might lead. Let's enjoy the ride together. <3 
> 
> I'll be editing as I go too, so feel free to point out errors. And Soul, I hope you don't mind the gift.


End file.
